The Hindu Temple v2.c12.78

v2.c12.78

The compositional theme of the three main panels is the wave. It rises and falls and carries its movement to the top of every scroll, lays it down at the crest of the main wave and having completed its eddying and interlacing in varied configurations, it returns its impact to its main carrier. This is shown as a creeper’s stalk pervading the whole panel and from it stem other branches which have one wave length only. They are cut flat and sharp, perpendicularly, in the stone in a pattern of light and darkness, intricate yet clear; the carving is left unfinished where further elaboration was not essential, to the effect, at the side of the entrance to the Garbhagṛha. In the surround of the door however they are clad in the shape of the Śārdūla with its rider and counterplayer who holds the creature’s tail in one hand and threatens it with the weapon held in the other; the protagonists are almost equal in size. But, when the warrior brandishes the same weapon while he has mounted the animal, he has lost his stature and the animal’s head is turned back, leering open mouthed towards its diminutive rider. These bodies are formed of a concatenation of waves; crossing at many points of their courses they ascend from the bottom (not shown in the reproduction) to the top of the panel and enmesh the playful fury of the recurrent combat. Three wave movements are thus interlaced; viewed from the top of the panel, the one glides from the chest-curve of the Lion to its buttocks, sweeps with its crest over the warrior and descends to the next lion’s chest, rising towards its buttocks whence the play goes on as before. The second wave passes from the profile of the lion’s head to the root of its tail and rising, passes from the warrior’s chest to his leg thrown forward, then again engulfs the next lion and sinks from the root of its tail to the warrior's cest, supports his contracted body and once again mounts along the lion's face, e., below. The third wave passes along the topmost lion's rounded chest and thelaws of his feet, thence across the warrior's chest thrust forward, thence to hisbuttocks and left leg thrown back, and then down to chest and claws of the secor, swastika-poised mannekin, and thus onward. The waves intersect on chest andbuttocks of the Lion and on the warrior's chest; within the waves the small riders engulfed securely on the back of the Śārdūla.